STATEMENT BY LAWYER AAMER ANWAR ON BEHALF OF CLARA PONSATI

Catalan Exile former Education Minister, Professor Clara Ponsati was due to hand herself into the Scottish authorities on Thursday 7th November, that has now been delayed.

It is the norm for the European Arrest Warrant to be checked for accuracy before being passed to the state from which extradition is being sought.

Recently failures by Spain to follow EAW procedures led to delays on the warrant being accepted by Belgium for the extradition of former President, Carles Puigdemont.

Early this morning the translated warrant for Clara arrived and clarity is now being sought by the UK authorities on the warrant from Spain.

Over the last 24 hours, we have been translating the Spanish warrant in our possession issued by a senior Judge Pablo Llarena.

There appears to be glaring contradictions contained in a ‘rambling’ warrant stretching to some 59 pages, which jumps from ‘Rebellion’ to ‘Sedition’, whilst Clara Ponsati is accused of Sedition but is only briefly mentioned on two pages, with no clarity as to her role.

We note the Arrest Warrant begins with the activities of the ‘Independence’ movement in December 2012, however Clara Ponsati only returned to become Education Minister on July 14th 2017.

The warrant has now been returned to Spain seeking clarification, which means Professor Clara Ponsati will not be appearing at the Edinburgh Police Office on Thursday 7th November and the court hearing is cancelled.

Provisionally it is expected that Clara will hand herself into the authorities on Thursday 14th November at 11am, but will provide an update as soon as this is confirmed.

The shambolic ‘arrogant’ attempts at extradition by Spain should be a source of deep embarrassment to them. This is now Spain’s third attempt to extradite Clara and they stand accused of abusing the European Arrest Warrant process.

We are instructed to robustly defend Clara in what she claims to be a ‘judicially motivated act of vengeance’ against the Catalan politicians.

Our legal team is also monitoring closely the ‘hard-line’ statements by President Pedro Sanchez, where he boasts of controlling the public prosecutor in the extradition process.

Such statements makes a total mockery of the Spanish state’s claim to have the ‘separation of powers’.

We are putting politicians such as Pedro Sanchez on notice, that we will not hesitate to cite them as witnesses to our courts, to answer questions on their alleged interference with the Spanish judiciary, lack of impartiality and any political motivation over the extradition process.

080. Información relativa al derecho nacionalOrig: The EAW as detailed in the A form for the above subject has been reviewed by a specialist UK lawyer on behalf of the National Crime Agency. They have determined that it is disproportionate under UK law.

083. Información particular relativa a la descripción orig: As per the attached document, this EAW has not been certified by the UK SIRENE Bureau and no further action will be taken by the UK regarding this matter at this time. However, if you hold any information concerning the individual's previous offending history, or any other information relating to the seriousness of the offence, please provide it to the NCA (by way of an M form to the SIRENE Bureau UK); and we will re-evaluate our decision not to certify this EAW. Kind RegardsSIRENE UK

001. Fecha y hora 20191106203507
002. Número de mensaje 342514
003. Sirene remitente UK
004. Sirene destinatario ES
005. Número Schengen 0005.0210006761771A300000001.01080. Información relativa al derecho nacionalOrig: Dear Colleagues, We have considered the attached request. The request does not currently provide sufficient detail of the nature of the offence: it also lacks a description of the time and place at which the offence was committed. The request must also show a clear connection between the offence and the named individual. In order for this request to be progressed under the Extradition Act 2003 please can this further detail be provided as a matter of urgency. Once this information is added to the request it will be certified by the NCA and arrest plans can then be made by the police as they deem appropriate. In our previous message (2019-11-06 08:20 UTC) our reply incorrectly stated that the warrant was disproportionate – it is not disproportionate, it is just currently lacking in essential information. We apologise for this miscommunication.SIRENE UK